


New Souviniers

by Missy



Category: Burn Notice
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Drama, F/M, Humor, Road Trips, Romance, Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-11
Updated: 2012-12-11
Packaged: 2017-11-20 21:02:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/589605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Missy/pseuds/Missy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Michael and his extended family travel from Florida to California to track down the man who murdered his brother.</p>
            </blockquote>





	New Souviniers

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Journey Story Big Bang in '12. Thank you to Tam for beta and Holly Marchosia for her fanart!
> 
> This diverges from canon right after Nate's death.

  


**1: Cactus**

“You didn’t pack my Luger.” 

Fiona blew a mouthful of red hair out of her eyes and gave Michael a glare. A moment before she had been bent over the belly of the Charger, a wrench in her grip as she and Sam tried to flush the engine with a half-bottle of tap water she’d smuggled out of their last rest stop. That had followed hours of her desperately tinkering with their engine in pursuit of some sort of purr, moan or squeak.

“You can borrow my HK,” Sam offered, handing Fi a lugnut. “This is the last chance we’ve got, Fi,” he said. “If this doesn’t work, it’s gonna be a long, hard walk to the next rest stop. “I feel like I’m back at the drive-in with my old high school girlfriend…”

“Please,” Michael requested, “don’t finish that sentence.”

“She’s just asking for a little finessing,” Sam declared, glaring at the engine block. “Just a little TLC.” He promptly booted the side of it as hard as he possibly could with the tip of his shoe. “A little freaking juice!”

“We should try to get it jumped,” Fiona said.

“Who the heck can we get to jump it?” Sam asked, throwing out his arms, framing the wide expense of desert which they’d been driving into for hours now. “The cacti?”

He and Michael locked eyes. “The cacti!” 

While they jury-rigged a freshly-sliced cactus for its alkaline properties, Fiona chopped up another and slid into the back seat of the Charger, rousing Maddie from her sleep and urging her to drink.

“How far are we from Las Vegas?” she wondered.

“Another ten miles,” Fiona said. “Maddie, are you really sure you want to….”

“…I’ve got twelve bullets left in my pocket,” she said. “The odds are pretty high that I’ll bury one of those in that bastard’s neck.”

Fiona’s lips twisted upward; approval shone in her eyes like diamond dust. “If you’d like more practice….”

“I think we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” she declared, staring above her sunglasses at Mike and Sam. “What are they doing?” 

The driver’s side door opened, admitting Michael and Sam to the cab of the Charger. “One more try,” Sam said. “If this doesn’t work, we’re gonna have to hoof it down the interstate.”

Fiona crossed her fingers as Michael turned the ignition switch.

A moment later they were detaching the juicy cactus from a fully re-hydrated Charger. 

 

**2: Diner**

“Do they have anything that isn’t swimming in gravy?”

Sam raised an eyebrow and stared at Fiona. “This is the best place around for miles. I don’t care if it’s swimming in fly wings.”

Madeline’s nose turned upward, and she glared at Sam. “I think I’ll just have some coffee.”

“No,” Michael said firmly. “You’re going to eat, Ma. Just pick something out and I’ll pay for it.”

She squinted at the menu. “Popcorn chicken? That sounds all right.”

Fiona flipped from the Early Bird Specials back toward the dinner menu. “Do you see any salads?” she asked.

Sam groaned. “You’re not gonna find some wimpy head of lettuce lyin’ around this place, Fi!” He helped the waitress with her pot of coffee, sprinkling his conversation with ‘excuse me’s’ and ‘thank you, ‘darlin’s.’ Fiona rolled her eyes as the girl scampered away. 

“Must you flirt with anything possessing a ponytail and cleavage?”

“Yes,” Sam said primly, “I must flirt with anything wearing a ponytail and clevage. If I don’t, everything below my waist’ll die. It’s like a ticking time bomb.” He sounded so ridiculously sincere that Fiona managed a thin smile.

“I have no idea what I should have,” she admitted. “No…I’m not very hungry, that’s the problem.”

“You have to eat something. They starved you back in that place…” Michael’s lecture ended on another low sigh from Fiona. 

“I’m not a wee helpless child, Michael,” she proclaimed. “I’m just feeling a little blah.” 

“Are you sick, honey?” Madeline unzipped her purse, and Michael was forced to head off her attempt at plunging an ear thermometer into Fiona.

“Not sick,” Fiona explained. “Tired. So coffee ‘tis.”

Sam rolled his eyes and called for the waitress. He ordered a double-stacked bacon burger with cheese fries; Michael got a bowl of tomato soup, Madeline ordered a tuna melt, and Fiona got her coffee.

Michael started fooling around with the keypad of his phone the moment the woman was out of his line of vision. “Had any luck getting it to work?”

“No. If I had a soldering iron…” He shook the piece of machinery before setting it back into his pocket. “Anson couldn’t do anything quietly. The bastard just had to die as loudly as possible….” He trailed off when the waitress arrived with their drinks and said, “….is what I’m going to tell him when we get back to the playhouse. Man, he’s gotta learn how to tone it down if he wants to keep his spot with us!”

Fiona and Sam managed gravel-laden laughs, while Madeline just raised an eyebrow and lit her cigarette.

“Excuse me, Ma’am,” the waitress squeaked. “This is a non-smoking establishment.”

Madeline froze with the cigarette tucked in her cheek. “I understand, honey,” she said sweetly. Once the waitress beat a retreat, she asked the assemblage, “Which of you wants to sit out in that heat with me while I finish this?”

“I’ll go,” Fiona volunteered.

“You’re sure?” Michael worried.

Fiona nodded. “I need to have a little chat with Madeline, anyway.”

The two women stood and slid out of the booths. Sam watched them leave, pocketbooks tucked into elbows. “Women stuff’s afoot,” he declared. 

“They just need a breath of fresh air,” he said. 

“Fresh, cigarette-smoke filled air,” Sam cracked. 

He knew something was going on between the two women, but he left it to Fiona to reveal what was eating her – and why she wasn’t eating at all.

***

They were four steps away from the doorway when Madeline lit her cigarette and took a long, deep drag from it. “You’re pregnant.” 

Fiona stared at her, shock stark on her features. “I’m….Madeline, how did you guess?”

“I know that expression,” she said. “Your pupils keep turning into pinpoints. Either you’re pregnant or someone’s shining their headlights right in your face.”

Fiona rolled her eyes. “I can’t tell Michael, not until we get to Atlantic City. Once we get Management we’ll have time…”

Maddie’s features fell. “Time’s the one thing none of us can be sure we’ve got,” she said. 

“I’ll risk it. I can’t let myself distract him now.” She watched Michael and Sam through the window, talking and laughing – blood brothers through thick and thin. 

Fiona smiled. She had a blood ally, herself. Madeline’s cigarette grew shorter as the morning sun started to dim behind a sunblasted cotton tree. 

“When you’re done,” she said, “we’ll go inside.”

It was a short wait; Madeline had been desperate for a nicotine infusion. Hand in hand, the women moved toward the heavy metal staircase leading back into the diner.

“Promise me you won’t make him suffer for too long.”

Fiona managed a wan grin and opened the door. “Not for too much longer,” she agreed, and ushered Madeline inside.

 

**3: The World’s Largest Ball of Twine**

“The blue teeshirt or the red teeshirt?” Sam asked Fiona. She had been nibbling a palm-sized peanut butter cup while he and Michael took turns helping Madeline decide between a large plastic mug with the words ‘Death Valley’ emblazoned on its side or a teddy bear wearing a shirt proclaiming the heat ‘unbearable’.

Fiona watched them with her chin propped into her cupped palm. “This is turning into a family vacation,” she declared. 

“Yeah, we’re the Rockwells – Norman, Mary and Squeaky Fromme,” Sam cracked. Fiona didn’t respond to his joke, and Sam poked her shoulder. “I know you usually hate my jokes, but try and fake it. My ego can’t take it.”

She glared at him. “Did you say something Sam? I couldn’t hear you over your endless complaining.”

He glared at her. “You can’t fool me, lady. I know something’s going on in there,” he gestured toward her hair. “UP there.”

Fiona glared at him. “We’re on the run, Sam. You’ll have to excuse me if I’m a bit distracted.”

He shook his head. “It’s not distraction. Something else is going on.” 

“I’m all right,” she said. He sounded much like Madeline, and rather like his best friend – the two of them had been henpecking her for hours. Yes, she’d eaten and drank enough, and had definitely had enough sleep, no thanks to Michael’s restless tossing and turning. Truth be told, she was healthier now than she had been before. The scrutiny was driving her to distraction.

“Here,” Sam held out his half-drunk coffee. “This is starting to go the way of my good taste.” He stared at the shirts for another moment, shrugged, and picked up the pink one.

Fiona took the blue one into the bathroom with her. During the utterly mundane process of swapping shirts in an enclosed, stiflingly warm space, she noticed a tapping sound. A very soft tapping sound, coming from directly over her head.

She scrambled toward the sound, climbing onto the toilet seat, reaching up to uncover the vent leading to the air duct. It was a typical bomb wrapped in a typical way; a digital counter telling her she had ten minutes, sporting white and yellow wires instead of blue and green ones, and two sticks of c4 strapped to two more of dynamite. She put in a call to Michael immediately.

Fiona didn’t even bother to wait for a greeting. “There’s a bomb in the ladies room. Clear the store.”

“Fi!” Vague panic entered his voice – she was determined to force it out, to make sure that Michael remained clear headed and even-tempered.

“Michael, get them all out now.” she said firmly. She wanted as many lives to be saved as humanly possible – if he decided to run to help her, a dozen innocent lives might be lost. 

He swallowed audibly. “I’m on it.”

She turned back toward the bomb. It wouldn’t take her much to disarm the blasted thing; she would need something to properly disengage the ignition switch though…aha! She pulled the stainless steel buckle out of her hair thong and slid it up to work loose several screws. It was a simple matter of cutting the supply of energy from the battery, and as she completed this, Michael’s sweaty face appeared in the cracked window.

“Fi?” he sounded as breathless, as fearful as she’d ever heard him. 

“Just a moment, Michael….” She squinted at the digital read-out, the lumps of polymer clay they’d used to hook the bomb to the charger. “Ugh. Such amateurs. They might have saved time and added a few packets of shrapnel…”

“Fiona, do you need me?” He whispered. 

Sam’s face appeared right beside his. “Are you guys okay?”

Fiona threw the two of them a glare. “Really, boys? You’ve seen me deactivate heavy explosives before,” she replied coolly, and then in disgust toward the explosive device, she added, “I can’t believe they used such shoddy, cheap material.” She pushed a hand into her purse, found a pair of nail clippers, and snipped two wires – the bomb let out a mournful beep as the read-out went blank. Fiona wrinkled her nose in distaste at it, then gave it an impish smile and tucked it into her bag, sashaying with great impunity toward the front door. 

Michael and Sam met her there, the former immediately crushing her in a hard embrace the second she stepped over the concrete threshold. She locked eyed with Sam, rolling her own indulgently. “Everything’s intact,” she declared, playfully shoving him away. “Shall we detonate this in safety?” 

“Sounds great to me.” Sam grinned. Michael was too busy staring at her with an almost manic intensity to respond. “Uh…Mike, I left your mom sitting on top of the car….”

The three of them headed toward the Charger. Madeline sat on there, on the hood of the car, chain smoking, with a cactus plant sitting on her knee. 

“Where did the three of you go?” she wondered.

“It’s a long story. Can you wait a couple of hours before we have dinner?” Michael’s businesslike approach made Fiona roll her eyes – he should exercise more caution for the sake of his mother.

“Oh, don’t mind me,” Madeline said, hopping off the trunk. “I could stand to lose a few pounds. I wouldn’t want the buzzards to choke on my bones.”

Michael climbed behind the wheel of the Charger, while Sam gently herded Maddie into the passenger-side seat. Fiona simply sat down nonchalantly, the purse in her lap as they cut through a long, painfully hot swath of desert. 

Ten miles outside of the last cow town between Las Cruces and Reno, Fiona took the pack of C4 and detonated it in the belly of a very large cactus. The imploded bits were very warm and - so Madeline agreed- very soothing with the spines peeled away from the beastly heat.

**4: Swim**

The Palms was an old, venerable hotel. With its mirrored surfaces and a polished marble countenance, it spoke of old-school gangster glamour. It was the last place someone might look for the practical Michael Westen and his crew, and about the last place Michael wanted to stay. Every second they spent trodding the parquet casino floors and supped at the elegant four-star restaurants in the foursquare they became more vulnerable to assassination. Sam was eating off of Elsa’s dime, the last two cents she was willing to accrue him, but even on that small amount of money they had as much fun as they could. 

“At least if they find us here we’ll go out in style,” Sam declared, eating a cheese omelet with impunity. 

Michael tapped the screen of his ‘borrowed’ IPad, learning the local weather, then the date and time of arrival for a huge thunderstorm set to pull through the area. “We’re twenty miles from where Rebecca was last seen. I’m not giving up now – and we’re not going out,” he said. 

Musical laughter drew Sam’s attention – it came from Madeline and Fiona exiting the elevator arm-in-arm, their hands weights with shopping bags.

“I’m gonna owe Elsa big for this,” Sam complained. “Y’know how she makes me pay her back for favors, Mikey? I have to give her hot oil massages. In a thong.” 

Michael ignored Sam utterly and rose to hold a hand out for Fiona. “Did you have fun?” he asked, a cursory question; Fiona always had fun when she shopped.

“We bought flip-flops!” Madeline grinned.

“And I found a gun shop a mile upstate,” Fiona’s grin was impish, wicked. “We’ll need more M4s if we want to have any sort of advantage.”

“C’mon, Fi!” Sam broke in.

“What?” she wondered.

“Assault rifles for an ambush?” Sam shook his head. “You’re gonna blow off a lotta civilian heads to finish off one lousy job!”

“Oh Sam – leave the massacres to me.” Sam shrank back at Fiona’s manic grin. “Long range is more your style, anyway – and we have plenty of those.”

“So,” Michael pushed ahead, “who’s hungry? The oatmeal is just…great…here.”

“You’ve gotta learn how to live, Mike,” Sam said. “Eggs Benedict for everyone.”

Fiona turned pale. “Fruit salad. I need to build up the acid in my venom.”

“I’m having flaxseed toast and an egg white omelet,” Maddie said, which earned her a round of confused looks. “I fasted last night and I’m starving.”

“Why?” Sam wondered.

“My blood sugar feels out of whack.” 

“Ma…”

“I’m not lying! I feel light-headed, Michael!” She pulled a cigarette out of her purse and tucked it between her lips. “All of this worry’s going to take a few years off of my life!”

“Iiiii don’t think you’re supposed to smoke here,” Sam said, and Michael was already reaching for the thing. She kept it tucked firmly between her teeth, glaring at Sam and Michael together. 

“If you wanna smoke outside,” Sam began, “I’d be glad to…” 

Madeline scooted away from the table, smiling. “There’s a sundeck out by the pool. Did you know Dean Martin stayed in one of those cabanas? The bag boy kept talking about it when he brought us our mimosas this morning…” Madeline proceeded to gab Sam’s ear off while they walked toward the nearest exit. 

Once Madeline and Sam were out of the way, Fiona reached across the table and took Michael’s hand. “Speaking of things that we never have time for…”

He squeezed the tips of her fingers. “I’m sorry you’re stuck sharing bunk beds with my mother.”

“It’s only temporary, Michael,” she declared. “Once the job’s over we’ll be together again. You know that I can be patient if I need to be.”

“Only if you’ve got something coming to you,” Michael replied. 

She smirked. “Better with honey than manure,” she reminded him. “Slowly…” the tips of her fingers traced an old scar on the ridge of his knuckle. “…Gently. Pouring like honey….”

He cleared his throat. “I’d like to spend some time with you.”

She sat back and raised an eyebrow. “When?”

His features sharpened. “Sooner would be better than later.”

“Hmmm,” she glanced back over her shoulder. “We could skip breakfast and take a swim.”

“Sorry, I’m starving.” 

She pouted. “Hmm. The wrong SORT of starving, I presume.”

“I thought you said good things come to those who wait, Fiona,” he replied lightly. 

“Only for those willing to wait, Michael.” Her hand grabbed his thigh under the table and he shuddered. 

The waitress came by with their food. She managed to eat half the platter before her fingers wandered up his thigh. 

“Fiona,” he muttered, sucking down a gulp of water. 

“Sam?” she asked, staring over Michael’s shoulder. Michael managed a glance backwards at his approaching best friend and saw Sam approach, loaded down with a veritable bonanza of balloons and large novelty foam objects.

“There was a woman,” Michael and Fiona surmised together. 

“There was a woman,” Madeline noted dryly, pulling back the chair and climbing into her seat. “She was selling balloons for the circus down at the arena. Sam started asking her about buying a couple of tanks of helium, and the next thing I knew he was buying his own balloon circus.” She grabbed the balloon crown from the top of his head and plopped it onto hers. 

“You can’t blame me for this one, guys - she had an accent and a bucket of plastic lobsters.” Sam sat down and grinned at his obscenely fat-laden meal. “I’m just one guy with a secret weakness for balloon tricks,” he reminded them, jamming his fork into a pancake. 

“Your secret weakness is lobsters?” Fiona laughed. 

“Lobsters and pretty ladies holding them,” Sam said. 

Fiona rolled her eyes. She finished before any of the rest of them, and was the quickest to immediately suggest that they head to the nearest to begin the groundwork for lying their trap.

“I want to go,” Madeline added. 

Sam immediately stepped forward. “No, Mad! It’s too dangerous! They’d kill you before you got a word out!”

“You know they wouldn’t suspect me,” she insisted. “I’m not the kind of woman you’d suspect of causing a scene.”

“Yeah, if I were a stranger,” Sam cracked. 

“I know I can do this, Michael. I don’t have the training, but I have the will. And I’m not afraid of them – I refuse to be.” She looked from Michael’s heavily-lined face to Sam’s worried expression, and to Fiona’s sympathetic expression. “Let me learn.”

“I can teach you how to hold a gun, but I can’t stop a mercenary from shooting you in the head,” Michael growled. “Help me out, Ma, by staying back this time.”

“I’m not going to go…”

“MA!” He slammed his palm against the table.

“Would anyone like some more coffee?” their waitress asked, materializing out of the blue by the salad bar with their check.

“NO,” all four of them shouted simultaneously. 

“I’m going to be sick,” Fiona complained. Which was enough to cause Sam to duck away from her, enough to raise Michael’s suspicions, enough to allow her time to flee the scene for a little privacy.

As she rushed away, their waitress slid the check under Michael’s plate. “We take Gold Cards,” she declared. “But cash is better.”

Michael gave her an immeasurably fake smile as he reached into his pocket for a wad of fifties. While she counted them, Michael excused himself, leaving Madeline in Sam’s capable hands while he searched out his girlfriend.

Michael combed the grounds briefly, eventually finding his way around an unguarded, quiet, and nearly invisible side of the building. It was there that he found Fiona coming around the building, her face still pale, her green eyes still muted and glassy with nausea and pain. “Are you all right?”

She nodded. “This is normal.” He opened his mouth and she held up an index finger. “Madeline and I had some bad gas station sushi last night.”

“You should be looked at if…”

Her eyes narrowed, flashing brightly. “Don’t ask any more questions. If I say it’s normal, it’s normal.”

“Fine,” Michael declared. “Have some ginger ale on Uncle Sam’s tab.”

“Mmm…Better Uncle Sam’s tab than Sam’s. It would never be paid.” She took a long, deep drag of the warm Las Vegas air. “I can see why Nate liked it so much here.”

“Fi…”

“He liked sunshine, Michael,” she parried. “He wanted to be our here in the desert..”

“…Where he wasn’t Mike Westen’s baby brother.” Michael’s expression darkened. “Where he was his own man. I drove him away, Fi. I drove him toward his death.”

Her fingers pressed against the back of his neck, a chilled compress against his pain. “You didn’t make him kill himself, Michael.”

“He didn’t. Kill himself. He was murdered.” His look devastated Fiona. “You saw that bastard put a bullet in him.”

“You did.” It hadn’t been that simple – and that wasn’t a fact that Michael wanted to deal with right now. “And we also have a pile of receipts that show…..”

“We both know what they show,” he said stiffly. 

“Nate was fifty thousand dollars in debt. He and Ruth were about to lose the house. We have several witnesses who saw him trying to solicit a hitman. If he wasn’t trying to kill Ruth, he was trying to…”

“Don’t say it. Do not say it…”

She grabbed him by his shoulders and gave him one solid, hard shake. “…Kill himself. He was trying to kill himself, Michael. If he wasn’t trying to hire someone to kill his wife, he was trying to find someone to kill him. Ruth had the motivation – and we’ve been desperately overlooking the Ruth factor because you’re so convinced someone else did this – but she had an alibi that checked out.”

“Nate would never do that to Charlie!” Michael growled. 

“And Nate’s suddenly a stable, smart man?” She rolled her eyes. “We both adored him, but Nate could be an irresponsible, shifty, no-good…”

“Fiona!” The word was a warning shot.

“You have to accept that your brother had sides that were unsavory. Don’t tell me that you already know he had them because you’re acting like you’re in total, complete denial.” 

“The only person who’s in denial right now is you. No wait, two people. You and Ruth,” he growled, pulling away from Fi’s touch. 

Fiona glared up at him, her eyes malevolent for just a second as he stared down at her in unfathomably determined strength. 

Fiona pivoted on her expensive heels and promptly threw herself into the pool.

“Fi!” Michael shed his shoes before throwing himself into the pool. He bobbed frantically under the surface for a moment before Fi rose up before him, grinning smugly. 

“Why did you do that?!” he cried. 

“I told you I wanted to cool down,” she smirked, tangling her legs around his.

**5: Carsick**

There were – as there always seemed to be whenever Michael Westen was around – a large pile of manila files lying wilted open under the hot California sun, now being crushed under Fiona’s knees as she lurched face-forward into the sunbleached grass. Files padding the door of the Charger in case someone decided to open fire on them – files lying tangled with her gauzy Gautier dresses and stack-heeled Manolos. Files piled casually in the luggage rack and strapped under the seats for protection. They were as vital to Michael as his next breath, and the center of his focus no matter how often she tried to drag his attention away from them. 

But, Fiona noticed grimly, there were a few things that could still pull Michael’s attention away from his obsession with Nate’s last hours. Losing her lunch across the back seat of the car was one such way.

“Are you empty?” Michael asked her, sitting down on the hood of the truck. Fiona had hunched herself over miserably against the side of the road, her hands tucked against her kneecaps, still as humanly possible to keep herself from further embarrassment.

“Quite,” she said flatly. She peered back over her shoulder. “Sam, let me clean that up.”

“No way, sister – you’re walking wounded. That means I’m taking care of you.” Sam’s head bobbed up, and up came his right hand, “Mike, I need more Armor-All.”

“Glove compartment,” Michael said, eyeing Fiona. “Are you ready to tell me now?”

She glared at him. “Are you ready to stop being a paternalistic chauvinist?” 

“I would have to be stupid and blind not to know what’s going on. And even if I were, I’ve seen enough soap operas to understand what’s happening.” 

Fiona’s glare sharpened, but she suddenly grew distracted. “Where’s your mother?” she asked.

“Mom’s getting you a ginger ale,” he said, pointing a mom and pop store two feet up the road. 

She laughed. “It’s a bit early for soda, Michael.”

“You’re no stickler for rules, Fi,” Michael pointed out. “And you need something to settle your stomach.” 

“My stomach will be fine,” she said, sitting back with a moan. “How far away are we from Calabasas?” 

“Just an hour. Do you need to take a break?”

“I’m not ill, Michael,” Fiona declared. 

“Yes. We both know you’re not sick.” 

Silence reigned between them as Madeline came out of the store, vigorously stirring a bottle of Canada Dry as she walked toward the car. The smile she gave Fiona was calm and sweet. “Are you feeling better, honey?” She then handed the bottle over to Fiona.

“Yes,” Fiona said. “It was just a little hiccup.”

“Hah, yeah right - a hiccup that wrecked my lap,” Sam said. Three glares silenced him, turning his attention back toward the car seat.

Fiona took a cautious sip of the flattened soda before asking, “Where did Rebecca say she wanted to meet us?”

“A place in Seaside Heights called Stuckey’s,” Sam said. “It’s shaped like a gigantic fast food container - they’re known for serving the best fried clams in California.” 

“How delightful. And she’s bringing us more ammo and the rendezvous date?”

“It’s very special. I’ve dressed up just for her,” Michael said, rolling his eyes, gesturing to the outfit he’d been sporting all morning.

Fiona smiled. “Mmm, I’m jealous. A teeshirt and jeans.”

“And a howitzer.” Michael lifted up his tee shirt to show her, and Sam let out a disgusted groan. 

“Well, then that is special,” declared Fiona. She stood up. “After breakfast,” she suggested, “why don’t we go swimming?” 

A deep laugh. “Good idea. You can upchuck into the Rio Grande.” 

“Sam. Sshh,” Michael replied.

“Great, now he’s hushing me like a dog,” Sam grumbled. “Reminds me of that time in Tel Aviv when the Agency used Michael to get out a bunch of scientists who were being used as double-agents. They sent my whole squad in to infiltrate a tent city to pull Mikey and his guys out by force.” Sam grinned. “That was fun. Still have sand in my knee from making that bazooka shot.”

Fiona raised an eyebrow, watching Michael’s stony, implacable expression. “They used you, Michael?”

“Yeah, but I’m used to it,” he retorted, helping his mother back into the car.

Fiona stood up on shaky legs and walked back toward the car. Once she sat down, a wave of exhaustion washed over her. Such a cliché, she sighed at herself, feeling the pull and draw of it suck her quickly under. The last thing she felt was Madeline’s hand closing gently over hers. 

*** 

It was past sunset when she awoke again, to a ravenous hunger that Michael fed with greasy fast-food cheese curds and hot dogs. Fiona had them both and a ton of steamed greens and felt a thousand times better. 

Sam and Madeline had fallen asleep in the front seat, so Michael and Fiona took themselves further into the neon jungle of Route 66 signs that lined the highway. She watched Michael suck down a thick chocolate shake and, when he was through, licked a stripe of chocolate sweetness from the edge of his lip.

He came away from her smiling. “I missed you, Fi.” 

“Mutually,” Fiona replied. “Do you really think Rebecca’s holding the last piece?” 

“She’s the only person close enough to Anson to hold enough pull to get Nate shot,” Michael said. “Someone else did this. She has to know who it is, and why.” Her look was an uncertain one, and Michael automatically stepped in to solidify her conviction. “Nate didn’t arrange for his own suicide, Fi. He wouldn’t have left Charlie behind. Nate loved living. He loved gambling, and he loved his booze, and he loved watching the Marlins win. But the most important thing in the world to him was watching his little boy grow up.”

Fiona nodded. “We should go to see them. Ruth probably needs my help now – the woman has about as much mother love in her body as a snake. “

Michael smiled. “You’ll make a good mother, Fiona. Someday.”

“Someday soon,” Fiona agreed. Perhaps in the coming seven months, she’d figure out just how good a one she’d become.

“Come on,” Michael said fondly. “Let’s ride.” 

Fiona took his hand and realized – even at the edge of the desert, in the middle of nowhere – she would ride with Michael anywhere.

 

**6: The Best Fried Clams in Seaside Heights**

There was something oddly delicate about a seaside town operating at the foothill of a great depression. White window frames that once glowed like the harbor lights at midnight peeled and cracked like the lips of the artificial saints being dunked in puddles of ocean water at the midway. Fresh packets of saltwater taffy were pulled by metal hooks every morning and thrown away by the score at night, food for the overstuffed seagulls diving overhead; everything smelled fresh and golden, but no one seemed willing to put up with the past they were daily confronted with to enjoy it all. The boardwalk splintered over a rolling gray ocean capped with white peaks, looking as weathered as the ancient murals advertising Benson’s Wild Animal Farm plastered onto the barnside walls of the carousel building.

That carousel, Sam quickly learned (and quickly told the rest of them during an afternoon too long and dull to otherwise merit recording) that the carousel was the town’s major attraction. The city’s gem, it had been installed in 1890, survived two wars, a great depression, and the general jading of the populace in the internet era. Generations had taken a spin on that carousel, and generations more would take their own ride, clinging to the brass bar, hoping with all their might not to be thrown off. It was an excellent place to hide bugs; they don’t sweep local landmarks for spycraft. 

Michael had selected the park for that reason, and for one of the many abandoned buildings, which would play headquarters for their little group for the next untold number of days. The four of them lived off seafood, monitored the game room with oversized surveillance monitors, and rested while consuming piles of hot popcorn and fresh cotton candy. Sam was in heaven, but Michael could only yearn for the end to this little mess, the big denouement that would finally lead him to the end of the road. 

“Do you think Pearce’s intel is right?” Fiona asked, wrist-deep in a bucket of kettle corn. She had called Michael from a disposable cell in Hollywood, and Dani would be ready to rendezvous with them tomorrow. 

“It’s only five hours old,” he said. “I wouldn’t have wasted a couple of thousand hours on this set-up if I didn’t trust Dani.”

“So the man who killed Nate loves funnel cakes and tradition?” she popped another handful of popcorn into her mouth. “Typical. Assassins are so bloody stodgy and so terribly dull.” 

“You’d know,” Sam cracked as he slid in through the back door, tossing Fi a large plastic take-out container. She eyed it dubiously before opening it and rewarding him with a pleased gasp.

“Butterleaf lettuce!” she cooed. “Grilled chicken! How did you find it, Sam?”

Sam only chuckled and sidled on into the room. “A buddy of mine runs a place on the opposite end of the street. I told him my little lady had a sensitive tummy from running around in the hot sun.”

“You shouldn’t have,” she mumbled, mouth full.

Sam chuckled. “At this point, sister, I’d do anything to keep you from tossing your cookies all over the inside leg of my pants.”

“Oh shut up, you tosser. I haven’t thrown up that often,” she glowered. Michael eyed her, and she frowned, “I’ve taken my vitamins and kept my belly filled with tea.” She defied them with her look, her expression, to expect more from her. “Madeline agrees with me, and she’s the only one who’s been…” Fiona trailed off. Saying the word ‘pregnant’ would solidify everything into fact, and she couldn’t bear to speak the words. “…who’s had my condition.” Maddie – asleep with a cucumber mask on her face – snorted in her sleep and rolled over.

“I told her not to take the night shift,” Michael worried. 

“She’ll be fine,” Sam declared. In an aside to Fiona, he added, “by the way, he expects us for dinner on Sunday.” Tossing a glance at the monitors, he asked, “Any luck with our Ukrainian friend?”

Fiona glowered at Sam’s declaration, but between bites of salad she said, “He’s been talking to his supplier about pulling out of town. Seems he suspects something.” 

“We’ve been quiet as a grave,” Michael said. “I don’t know what he’s seen, but he’s getting anxious.”

“And he’s got some very interesting guns,” Sam added, pointing with the tip of his fork at the screen. “If we can convince him to stay until Pearce gets here, we’ll have her intel and her backup. Odds are one of them knows where Rebecca is. If she knows who killed Nate we’re less than three steps from bringing the bastard to justice.”

“Or meeting Kevin Bacon,” Sam offered. “It’s gonna take some finessing to get to the truth, either way.” He cracked an enormous grin. “Looks like a job for Chuck Finley.”

“Is there ever a job that isn’t right for Chuck Finley?” Fiona wondered.

“Sure. He doesn’t do windows,” Sam declared flippantly. 

Michael sat back and said, “We’ve got to put together a plan.”

“Chuck doesn’t count as a plan anymore?” Sam asked, sounding mock-offended.

“Only when he’s heading in to round up orphans. Gun dealers require plotting,” Michael declared.

“So what’s your idea, Mikey?” Sam wondered. 

“Remember how badly you’ve always wanted to use my SIG Sauer?” Michael asked.

“Couldn’t forget it if I tried,” Sam cracked. “But that thing’s your baby, Mike. It’s as hands-off for me as Fiona.”

“Are you boys comparing me to guns again?” Fi had tuned them out, slurping down more Perrier and trying to finish the last of her salad. 

“Never, Fi,” Michael said lightly. He reached under the pillow for his gun and handed it to Sam. “This is what happens when you only bring scopes with you, Sam.” 

“This is what happens when you roust me out of bed at six in the morning to go scare up your leads and get us into a car chase,” Sam retorted.

“Treat it well,” Michael said, ignoring the argument deliberately. 

“I treat my guns like I treat my women,” Sam retorted, cocking the safety back on. “Squeeze ‘em with love and make sure they’re ready to go off at any minute.”

“That was delightfully crude,” Fiona observed, fanning herself with an open palm.

“It’s typically Sam,” Michael replied. He lay back against the couch. “We’ll be watching, Sam.”

He grinned. “I’ll give you a good show, brother,” he chortled. 

“The best in town?” Michael asked, watching him leave.

“So good, you’ll be glad we don’t have a cable hook up!” 

Fiona shook her head at Sam’s retreating form. “There goes our hero, Michael.” She turned toward the monitor they’d set up. “And I’m fresh out of popcorn.”

Michael watched her closely, intensely, for a very long time – long enough to force Fi to whip her head back from the bag of carnival corn they’d bought that morning and give him a peevish glare. “I’m fine,” she declared quietly.

“And I know you’re fine.” He then turned his head in the direction of his dozing mother. “Was she up all night again?”

Fiona nodded. “Shooting at the stars again. I loaned her my Walther.” 

“I keep begging her to stop with the target practice,” Michael said. “It’s going to get us spotted.” Onscreen, Chuck Finley was laughing his blandishments, and Michael kept an ear cocked to the monitor in case Sam required them. 

“This is personal business,” Fiona reminded him, totally unnecessarily. “Her son bled out on her living room floor.” 

“I understand. Don’t think I don’t,” Michael requested. “But I’m trying to keep you both safe.”

“Michael,” Fiona sniffed. “I’ve never needed to be protected. And I’m never going to want someone holding my bleeding hand while the world crashes down.”

Michael smirked at her. “I know that, Fi.”

She glowered and sat back down with her popcorn. Instantly, she squirmed for a long moment, then set it all aside and rose. “This…bowl of popcorn…is too salty,” she complained, heading to the bathroom. Michael didn’t envy Fi – barely past the vomiting section of her ‘trouble’, the baby now asserted itself by making her pee every few hours. It was a pain when they were traveling, but a larger inconvenience at a stakeout. He heard her pour a bucket of water into the tank and flush it with a disgusted sigh.

Michael continued to monitor Sam, hoping that his best friend would somehow pull it out. Sam was the God of the miracle con; he had already won the trust of the murderer with a few laughs and a couple of pats on the back. If only he could keep his voice even, keep the conversation on track, and stop the guy from suspecting things that weren’t there, they’d be in decent shape.

Sam ended up leaving the carousel, but Michael’s microphone continued to pick up his movements; they got a corndog. Sam piled it on. Beers were consumed and details started leaking out like a flood of snot from a three-year-old’s nose. Yes, this man had a connection to an underground organization trading highly-powered, illegal weapons for a stake in the drug trade. They knew Rebecca, but she hadn’t hired them – she’d simply been a rogue acquaintance who had mentioned that Nate Westen knew someone of consequence. Of course he knew who held the master blueprints of the one-of-a-kind, armor-piercing gun that had disappeared from Carmello’s stash on the way to Nicaragua – which was why Miami had been suffering an odd number of deaths, a ream of headless torsos and handless arms turning up in dumpsters across Dade County. He found the idea of bamboozling such a well-guarded, carefully-buttressed stockpile funny, the fact that Carmello had gone wild and had executed some perfectly innocent men in a misguided attempt at revenge. His bosses didn’t care if some random underworld figures bought the farm in their name; they had what they wanted, and now they would be unstoppable. All of this was new information to Michael, and he took in every word with bated breath.

“So why did your bosses take it?” Sam asked. Michael heard the deliberately slurry form of speech Sam chose to use and grimaced at the implication of so much booze entering his system. Sam was probably watering it down – he was a pro, knew how to handle himself in such situations, and Michael trusted him to make it out. “Because of their power trip? Or did they need it to turn a special person a pile of minced bacon.”

The target paused, a crackling, ancient-sounding laugh coming from the depths of him. “We’re not planning on using it for a bake sale,” he roared. “We needed something special to take out Anson Fullerton. It was a contract job. He needed to be as dead as possible. An explosion would’ve been better, but he’d already pulled that bullshit himself too many times. So they decided to execute him. An old-fashioned sniper job.” 

Michael’s face contracted into a grimace. He’d always suspected that Nate was collateral damage – that he hadn’t been the true target of the assassination. That it might have been his mom or Sam instead flooded his mind with bitter thoughts, bitter memories. He realized that only one option lay ahead of him – vengeance in the name of his brother. 

“I need to get out,” he muttered under his breath. Fiona raised her head, but in her eyes there showed nothing but wholesale disbelief. She knew – as did Michael, without bothering to consult her – that he would never truly get out. But Michael felt wholeheartedly that he was meant to be a private dick now. The agency had sucked too much vitality from his life, and it had forced him to miss the best years of his brother’s existence. 

“So that’s what it all means? Thriving on chaos?” Sam’s voice was contemptuous, casual.

“You know how guys like this work, man,” laughed their mark. “They just wanna watch people jump and run when they snap their fingers.”

“Well,” Sam said. “I can’t act without my guys around. But tomorrow, we’ll met down by the Curly Whurly on Fourth and Elm Street. It’ll be quick, friendly, real business-like.”

“You don’t have to butter my ass up, Finley. You seem like a stand-up Joe.”

Sam’s laughter crackled over the comm. “Brother, you ain’t heard the half of it.” The sound of laughter, of hands being shaken, of a footfall. Sam stayed still for a moment, then Michael heard the sound of a footfall growing closer and closer, until he finally arrived back at their domicile.

Michael met him with an approving look. “I think we’ve got him, Sam.”

“The man’s an icecube,” Sam replied, tugging violently on his necktie. “I thought I was going to give me frostbite.”

“It’s worth losing a toe or two, Sam. Game, set, and match,” Fiona noted, eyebrow rising. “Well done.” 

“All in a day’s work,” Sam declared, throwing himself onto the bad. “Get cleaned up, guys – dinner’s on me tonight.”

At his words, Maddie stirred and opened her eyes. “Food sounds good.” Then she gave them a wide, uncomprehending yawn.

“So,” she asked, getting up, “what did I miss?”

**7: The Curly-Wurly**

Michael and Sam arrived for their little meeting dressed to the nines, with several big guns and toting several rare weapons scored from one of Fiona’s connections. Some distance away, Fi had set herself up with her scope, and Maddie had a hand on her cell phone, ready to call in the cops if their presence proved necessary. The women were now hunched together on the ground, Madeline spending much of her attention on Fiona, carefully rubbing her lower back.

“I’m not made of glass,” she murmured. 

“No, but you’re in your second trimester,” Maddie pointed out. Fiona’s skinny body had begun to take on a fresh lushness that even Sam had felt the unfortunate need to remark upon. “I’ve been through this twice. Listen to me.”

Fiona squeezed her eyes shut. “I’ve never been good at bracing myself for tomorrow,” she admitted. “What are we going to do if Michael doesn’ t make it?”

Madeline’s featured turned diamond-sharp. “We’ll go home. And we’ll keep living our lives.” She checked the gun she’d tucked into her waistband, imitating Fiona and Sam’s weapon-carrying methods. 

“I’d rather go down shooting,” Fiona sniffed. 

Madeline shook her head. “That’s something you can’t do. Not anymore.” 

Fiona nodded. “I know.” Her hand rested against the wooden piling that framed her face. “I wish I were out there with the two of them.”

“So do I,” Maddie confessed. Before Fiona could express her surprise at Madeline’s total loss of cowardice, the comm crackled. 

“Target sighted,” Michael said. Both women crouched closer to the ground of the abandoned French fry stand they’d chosen to occupy. On the ground, Chuck was braying out some blandishments, introducing Michael as “Tommy from the South Side.” Michael was using some sort of ludicrous Brooklyn accent. Under the screams and wails of the few who had boarded the neon-colored Curly Whurly, Sam spoke of getting them lemonade, of showing off their arms in private.

It was going so alarmingly smoothly that Fiona was tensed, on her toes, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

That shoe came in the form of the guys not having the weapon that had killed Nate and Anson.

“You’ll need to meet me at the end of the week,” he said. “The weapon is in…stronger hands.”

There was a protracted pause on the recording as Michael processed the news. “Gentlemen, we’ve bargained with you in good faith,” he said. “I don’t know what more we must do to prove our loyalty to you.”

A low, dangerous laugh from their connection. “Perhaps you should do us a small favor,” he replied.

“What kind of favor?” Sam asked, laughing brightly. “Are we washing your car? Doing your laundry?”

“Making the son of our rival disappear.”

Silence. Fiona tensed, her finger tapping the trigger of Sam’s rifle. On the ground, one sound broke the silent grimness that had overtaken the entire situation.

Sam’s laughter, which nakedly displayed his anxiety. “The sort of favor that involves us getting killed?”

“It’s a very simple mission,” he said. “And I doubt a six-year-old could kill two men with a scope rifle that weighs twice as much as he does.”

“You want us to kill a kid for some blueprints,” Sam muttered.

“Not only the blueprints. I believe you’re all still looking for the name of the shooter. You know it’s not that little blonde chickie, right? And he didn’t kill himself like the police said…”

“Don’t do it, Michael,” Fiona whispered, knowing the words would be nothing more than an echo in the back of her boyfriend’s head. He was constructed of determination and an iron will that was impossible to destroy – the most important thing in the world was, and would always be, getting justice for the helpless. Fiona’s gut clenched. For all of Michael’s pretty platitudes, she knew her place.

“Sure. We bring you evidence of the kid’s dirtnap, you give us the name, the plans, and the gun. But if you don’t come through for us…” another laugh - Michael’s - cruel and sour in her ear. “I know a school of fish that’d love to go out for some Italian.” 

There was a sharp, brittle laugh; Sam’s falsified baritone ringing out over them all. Fiona’s posture relaxed as a limo taxied up – until it was out of sight, Sam and Michael didn’t move.

“Michael?” Madeline wondered. “Sweetheart, are you really going to…”

“Ma, we’ve done this a million times,” he replied, cool of voice, his mannerisms entirely controlled. “We’ll find the boy, hide him somewhere, fake his death, and get the files.” He paused. “Did you really…”

“Hey, I don’t know how you guys feel,” Sam said, “but I’m starving to death. How about we dig up some eats? Pearce mentioned meeting Mikey down at the Italian place near Fourth and Main. She should be in town by now for the meeting, and if I tell her it’s a social call she’d probably come. I can call her up…”

“Fine, Sam.”

“I’m not hungry,” Fiona snapped.

“You need to eat,” Michael said. “To stay strong…”

“Michael…”

“For the baby’s sake.”

A resentment-strained moment of silence occurred. Fiona simply turned away, going about the process of breaking down her gun for transportation. “Awkward,” she heard Sam remark, but there was nothing more to be said at that point.

When Michael and Sam finally reached Fiona and Madeline, neither woman was in the mood to speak to them. Dinner was only relieved by the appearance of Pearce, who had finally arrived on the west coast with a cache of weapons and Jesse in tow. 

As she explained to them their status remained complicated and shaky, and that Anson’s death hadn’t entirely settled the panic and horror that permeated the agency since, Michael noticed something hovering just under the even tone of Dani’s speech. She and Jesse sat abnormally close together, and the two of them kept touching hands, stroking backs. They seemed amazingly single-minded, thinking and moving in unison. After Dani told them she had night vision goggles waiting for them in the car, Michael said simply, “When did this start?”

Fiona paused, fork against her lips. “When did you lose all of your social graces?”

“I was going to ask Jesse when the big panty drop happened,” Sam admitted, “but I wasn’t gonna do it with ladies present.”

“Oh, forget formality,” demanded Madeline. “We need some good news.”

“Formal’s about the last thing I’d call you guys,” Jesse retorted. “And it’s nobody’s business what Dani and I are doing behind closed doors, sorry.”

“Please shut up, Sam,” requested Dani. “Jesse, tell them what happened.”

He sighed. “A six hour stake-out and a twelve-pack,” he replied. “Now let’s get back to business.” 

Business, Michael thought, would never be settled tonight, but since Jesse wanted them to cover for him. “We need to kidnap a kid without scaring him.”

“That’s going to be a cakewalk compared to getting the kid to safety and giving these jackasses proof of his death, just so we can have those damn specs,” Sam grumbled.

“So you’re looking for a miracle?” Jesse replied dryly.

“Pretty much,” Michael agreed readily.

“If anyone can make the impossible happen,” Jesse said. “It’s you guys.”

“Even geniuses run out of ideas,” Fiona replied. “We’ve done two kidnappings before, but never children – and we’ve never had to fake a child’s death.”

“Why don’t we just make it look like the boy disappeared?” Pearce suggested suddenly. There passed a moment of silence between the six of them. 

“Bribe the mother,” Michael said suddenly. “Come to her, tell her what’s going on – have her keep the boy out of sight…”

“…pull the old bloody teddy bear routine on him,” Sam said. “Gaslight him into thinking we offed the kid, when…”

“…When,” Michael said, “the kid’s not only alive, but helping us haunt the bastard.”

“Well, it worked for Hitchcock,” pointed out Fiona.

“But how’re we going to convince his mom to let us do it?” Jesse asked, his imagination clearly sparked by the conversation. “She has no reason to trust us. We could just be enforcers for the guy who’s been trying to kill her whole family.”

“So we’ll just have to convince her that we’re some of the good guys,” Michael replied. 

Sam retorted, “Sorry, Mikey, but I left my priest collar back in Miami.” 

“Priests aren’t the only good guys,” Michael pointed out. “But I know we can get her to trust us.”

“At this point, “Sam replied, “We could put fifty thousand dollars in his hand and tell him to walk down to the boardwalk and it’d be a better plan than anything I’ve got bouncing around in my brain.” Sam shook his head, laughed bitterly. “I don’t know, Mike. I’ve got no freakin’ idea.”

“Let’s go with Michael’s plan,” Madeline declared – the first time she’d been automatically supportive of Michael in years. 

Sam glanced sideways at Fiona, and she, in turn, looked at Jesse. “Well,” Sam declared. “I guess we’re all in, brother.”

Michael smirked. He’d never doubted that the entire gang would agree to do it his way. But it was Pearce, who wore a disgruntled, distracted expression, which drew his concern more strongly. 

After making sure Sam had taken Fiona back to the safe-house and Jesse was sent off on a souvenir hunt with Maddie, Michael took a long stroll with Pearce on the deserted, lamplight-emboldened boardwalk. Within moments, Pearce turned toward him and told him, firmly, and utterly without sentiment, that she couldn’t afford to keep running away from Miami whenever he and his group ran out of supplies.

“You’re a rogue agent, Michael – persona non grata until we can prove you didn’t kill Anson for revenge and your claims about your brother’s death are real. Everyone had your sympathy when Nate died in your mother’s arms, but thenyou broke protocol, and that’s a major agency sin. And I can only cover up this hole in the budget for so long.”

Michael was entirely confused. “I thought you said they bought the Central America story.”

“To a point. But they’re starting to ask me questions. A couple of thousand here or a couple of thousand there would be believable. Four pairs of night vision goggles disappearing in the middle of the night from a high-security lock up can’t be pinned on a missing key.” 

Michael and Kim had physically, literally, come full circle. They stood before the Curly Whurly, an active and popular ride that had been spinning away at the center of the pier for years, before either of them had been a twinkle in their parent’s eyes. 

Pearce stared at the shimmering electric lights as the ride spun around and around. “I’ve done everything I can for the four of you,” she declared. “I’m running out of people to lean on, and out of options to keep you off of my supervisor’s radar. You’re going to be on your own from now on, Michael.”

His jaw firmed, his eyes growing glacial and distant at the ocean and sky before him. “We can handle it.” And he couldn’t even bring himself to blame her for her decision.

In the morning, Pearce and Jesse were gone. The rest of them would pack to take their act up north, using the directions they’d received from Michael’s contact to establish new spying grounds.

The Curly Whurly spun on and on, but the four of them wouldn’t see its like again.

**8: Riding the Ducks**

The Santa Monica Gardens were far more thickly populated than the old boardwalk. Sam kept his eye on the scene sprawled before them as Michael stood rigidly by the entrance to the duck ride, trying to emulate the lackadaisical teenagers who had been hired to shepherd groups on and off of the ride, his inborn tendency toward formality foiling him.

Fiona handed Sam a corn dog as she sat down on the ground beside him. “Any sign of Emmanuel?”

“Nope. Coast’s clear.” He sighed, mopped his brow, and took a large chunk out of the corn dog. “I could get used to eating out here, Mikey.”

“All of this carnival food must be terrible for your arteries,” Fiona replied. She had, at her own insistence, climbed a tree and was stationed among the branches with her HK, eyes focused off into the small distance between herself and the boat ride. “Checking in, Michael.”

“Hey, sister, I’m as fit as the day I hit my first…are you okay?” Sam asked.

“For the forty thousandth time, I’m fine,” she replied. “Madeline?”

“I’m all right,” Maddie replied. She’d been stationed in a full disguise by the park’s entrance, playing lookout and feeding the birds massed by her bench. A small pause. A crackle, “they’re coming, Michael.” 

Sam’s finger tapped against his trigger, and Fiona cleared her throat. Both leaned in as they watched a small cluster of new visitors run across the manicured lawn of the park. 

All three of them soon recognized the face of their target, a chubby little boy with dark eyes and green shorts. Within moments of arriving, he and his mother approached his favorite ride, the swan boats. 

Michael was careful to arrange the situation, making sure his fellow employees were occupied with a ‘disturbance’ at the front gate. On perfect cue, Maddie started ranting and raving, and each radio squeaked to life beneath the force of her anger. Michael’s fellow guards were called to assist, leaving Michael to direct the mother and son onto the boats and travel with them ‘as a precautionary measure.’

Four minutes into their ride they were in Fiona’s sights, and Michael was already explaining the team’s position.

“…I don’t want to kill your boy, your husband’s old associates do. It’s my job to keep you alive and get payback for my brother’s death, all in the same moment.”

“I need to call my husband,” she begged. “Please just let me…”

“How good of an actor is he?” A long pause.

“He could…”

“No he can’t. And we can’t risk this on the possibility he might fold like a card table under pressure. For the next twenty-four hours they need to believe your boy’s dead and you’re in mourning. Confusing them’s our other goal, and your husband will just have to get over it.” 

“Mommy,” came a soft treble, “I need to go to the bathroom.”

Another pause, a crackle of material. “You can take him when we get to the safe house.” 

A cynical laugh echoed through the earpiece. “So I should just trust you with absolutely no proof whatsoever in your favor?”

The boat floated back into sight, and Fi could see Michael’s exasperation even with the distance between them. “Ma’m, you have two choices. You can follow me and live, or you can leave this park, go back home and be executed by your husband’s enemies. I think you know what the right call is.”

“Mommy,” the boy whined. “I REALLY need to pee.”

“No one’s going to offer you a better deal, Missus Carbone.”

Loudspeakers squealed to life. _“Michael Westen to Entrance A. Your mother is waiting for you.”_

“That’s my cue,” Michael cringed. The woman stared at her lap for a brief minute before agreeing. “Yes. This is the wisest play possible for your family…”

The ride came to its conclusion, and Fiona packed up her scope. “That’s it?” Fiona asked. “It can’t be that easy.”

“Not everything in the intelligence field is kicking down doors and shooting people in the head,” Sam said over the comm. “Gonna meet you at the Charger?”

“We’ll be there,” Fiona sighed. “Let’s pick up Madeline.” 

Maddie was still at the front gate, ranting and raving, by the time Fiona and Sam found her. Fi passed her rifle to Sam, tossed back her head, and approached the cluster of employees. “MA!” She shouted in an exaggerated Brooklyn accent which matched Maddie’s perfectly, “didn’t I tell ya NOT to leave the bench?”

Fiona locked eyes with Madeline, mentally willing her to catch Fiona’s drift. She cackled. “Joanie! Where’s Michael?”

“He’s with the kids in the car, Ma!” She strutted over to Maddie, wrapping both arms around the woman. “Alzheimer's,” she mouthed to the attendants, enjoying the looks of shame that twisted their features. “Come on, let’s get you back to the home.” Then she whispered her ‘thank-yous’ and ‘I’m-sorrys’ all the way back to the Charger, Madeline clinging to her feebly until she was sure. “Good work, Maddie.”

Madeline reached into her pocket and pulled out a cigarette. She took two drags before raising an eyebrow. “Don’t get any ideas about homes around me, Fiona.”

“Never,” Fi said cheerfully.

It was harder to cram five people into the car than either had anticipated. Cramming themselves into the front seat, Fiona accidentally prodded Sam right in the face with her elbow. She had ducked outside to grab something shiny off the ground, closing the door on his shirt in the process.

“What the heck was so important?” he wondered, keeping it PG for the kid sitting behind him.

Fiona laughed and picked up one of the plastic swan toys littering the ground. “I think I found the perfect souvenir.” 

**9: Coach**

They stayed together – elbow at neck – for five days while Michael and Sam fabricated the ‘death’ of their little charge in a boating accident. Madeline and Fiona took to keeping Regina and little Tony calm and well-entertained during the trip, using their nights to rig charges to sailboats; this duty was added to Fiona’s handling of their weapons construction, even as her pregnancy advanced.

They had been prepared for bloody death. But when they received a call from Carmello a new surprise waited around the corner. This was his family they’d kept safe and hidden, thus he felt a natural debt to Michael and his clan, and offered them the firepower they’d need to take down the men who had set him against his trusted associates.

“It’s like making a deal with the devil,” Fiona noted, barely controlling her fury. 

But if the devil would bring him Nate’s killer, Michael was willing to get into bed with Satan himself “If it means keeping Tony and his mother were safe,” Carmello echoed, “then I’m going to do it.”

Together, they rode into the fray with the devil at their side, sure that they wouldn’t lose the battle this time.

**10: Souvenirs**

Peterson’s death was the messiest Fiona had ever witnessed. She actually cringed back from the livid catastrophe Michael had made of his brother’s assassin as he stomped, punched, and kicked the man to a pulp. Blood filled her shoes, ruining them – leaving another milestone marker on the abandoned beach upon which they fought. 

Sam had three new guns, taken from the bodies of the fallen; a scavenger’s paycheck. (Much later, when they were back home counting the blood money up, he told Michael, jokingly, that he owed him six cases of beer for this).

Madeline won her very first wound, a tiny bow echo above her lip, which split under the force of a punch two moments after she killed her first man, the man who owned the plans, who had sold the gun that had killed her son. 

Fiona rested her hand against the bulge of her stomach as she watched Michael stand up. He wiped his bloody hands on his pants and adjusted his sunglasses with cool, detached repose. 

And it was another mental snapshot for the scrapbook she’d composed of this trip. Physically, the memories were less distinctly kept. The plastic swan. The bloodstained shoes. The dried cactus chunk and the shale stained with pale pink detritus. A shotglass from a diner where she realized her life was about to be permanently changed. These were the souvenirs Fiona came away with from the months after Nathanial Westen’s death.

The violence repulsed and excited her in the same moment. She did not know if she would ever be able to trust Michael entirely again, yet she felt so well protected it didn’t matter. They would be glued together by the child, their mutual viciousness.

They locked eyes. She smiled. The baby kicked.

THE END

**Author's Note:**

> This work of fanfiction contains characters from the USA Network show Burn Notice. These characters are not the property of the author, but their use is not intended as a copyright infringement for monetary gain.


End file.
